Fictional Affinities: Crime Fantasy and Fantasy Crime

Abstract

The fictional territories of fantasy and crime show similar characteristics that allow for dialogue between them in certain works, a feature that has been analysed obliquely in some studies of Literary theory and which is treated specifically in this paper. Thus, analysis of the possible relationships between fantasy and crime through the lends of theoretical characterisation of each fictional territory is complemented by specifying two categories that describe different relationships: crime fantasy, in which the territory of fantasy predominates and crime plays a secondary role, and fantasy crime, in which the importance of each fictional territory is inverted. This characterisation concludes by analysing four stories, two in the crime fantasy genre - Unique Item, by Milorard Pavić, and “The Invisible Crime”, by Catherine Crowe - and two in the fantasy crime genre -The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle, and “The Digger with Wings”, by G.K. Chesterton-, to fill out the features of these categories, sketched theoretically, with others that specify structural, thematic and pragmatic aspects.